A Critic's Guide to London Gallery Weekend

Rafał Zajko’s solo show at the Cooke Latham Gallery is animated by a vision of the future. His sculptural forms reference technologies that feel old, yet somehow also new – stovetops, the exposed spools of thread from a sewing machine – to create a strange, haunted environment. Zajko’s retrofuturism captures a lost tomorrow. Here, progress is far from a straight line, and each piece offers what might be a compelling view of the future, even if it comes with a stark cost. For example, Siren IX (Shelterhead) (2022), which depicts part of a head with a light in place of lips, marked by surgical scars along the neck, offers what might be the next kind of human: one who can breathe underwater. The question asked by Zajko’s sirens, but never explicitly answered, is what the price of progress is and if it’s worth paying.